Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE SEMINOLES. Prom the time of the chimerical cruisings of Old Ponce do Leon in search of the Fountain of Youth; the avaricious expedition of Painphilo de Narvaez in quest of gold; and the chivalrous enterprise of Hernando de Soto, to discover and conquer a second Mexico, the natives of Florida have been continually subjected to the invasions and encroachments of white men. They have resisted them perseveringly but fruitlessly, and are now battling amidst swamps and morasses, for the last foothold of their native soil, with all the ferocity of despair. Can we wonder at the bitterness of a hostility that has been handed down from father to son, for up ward of three centuries, and exasperated by the wrongs and miseries of each succeeding generation ! The very name of the savages with whom we are fighting, betokens their fallen and homeless condition. Formed of the wrecks of once powerful tribes, and driven from their ancient seats of prosperity and dominion, they are known by the name of the Seminoles, or
Wanderers. Bartram, who travelled through Florida in the latter part of the last century, speaks of passing through a great extent of 13 ancient Indian fields, now silent and deserted, overgrown with forests, orange groves, and rank vegetation, the site of the ancient Alachua, the capital of a famous and powerful tribe, who in days of old could assemble thousands at bull-play and other athletic exercises over these then happy fields and green plains.
Almost every step we take, adds he,
over these fertile heights, discovers the remains and traces of ancient human habitations and cultivation. We are told that about the year 1763, when Florida was ceded by the Spaniards to the English, the Indians generally retired from the towns and the neighborhood of the whi…
